When things just line up
I managed a day off today - it was lovely. Not a bit of work in sight.
We had quite a stunning view from the balcony when we woke up - mist covering the cricket ground, hovering around the trees on into the distance past the top of Old Joe at the University that we could just peeking out in the distance.
We started off with a swim in the newly painted pool - that's all three of us!
Then it was off to Cannon Hill Park in Moseley for an early walk to capture the remnants of the mists as they caught the low morning sun. Of course it was lost on Imogen who slept through the whole thing. Anyway, I took a few images, including the one above.
Later, after dropping Emily off for a photo shoot, Imogen and I headed off to get some shopping and picked up a New Scientist.
In it was an amazing image that looks a little like this one from a paper published by
A. Garrett Lisi entitled "
An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything".
And I've since found these two in the paper itself:
Is this the
Theory of Everything that scientists have been striving for for so long?
It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I read about it. Fantastically simple, beautiful and _aesthetically pleasing_ to boot, and
Wired explains it best:
"Lisi's idea is based on an extraordinarily complicated geometric shape called E8, an eight-dimensional shape with 248 points – a pattern he thinks may describe the underlying geometry of the universe itself. The myriad of different particles and forces we perceive would then stem from this shape's weirdly symmetric geometry."
"One of the most intriguing things about the theory is that it might be tested more easily than string theory in the powerful Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator that will start operating in Switzerland next year. It makes predictions of particles that no one has ever seen, but which might show up in the LHC's detectors, Lisi argues."
So I just got home, and I
downloaded a copy of the paper, and I get another strange 'things lining up' moment:
As the author puts it himself: "If E8 theory is fully
successful as a theory of everything, our universe is an exceptionally beautiful shape."
The great thing is - it's testable - and seeing as CERN's Large Hadron Collider
will be switched on next year, we don't have too long to find wait...